


Crash Course

by astxrwar



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Slow Burn, Teacher-Student Relationship, anyway, me! - Freeform, other characters are mentioned but idk who's actually gonna be important, who signed up for a gross teacher/student fic?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-09
Updated: 2018-03-08
Packaged: 2018-10-16 21:45:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10580094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astxrwar/pseuds/astxrwar
Summary: So you can acknowledge that yeah, your history teacher has perfect bone structure and kind eyes and ridiculously broad shoulders and that maybe you’re a little attracted to him but like, who isn’t, honestly?The point is--It doesn’t mean anything.





	1. Get Up or Get Out

**Author's Note:**

> mmmmhmhmhmhmhm oh my goooood it's been like six hundred years i am SO SORRY

Steve Rogers is a good person.

He joins the Army at the age of eighteen, spends five years deployed overseas before coming back to Brooklyn with six titanium screws holding down a metal plate in his left leg. He gets home and goes right back to volunteering-- he donates to charities, works in soup kitchens, and helps people as much as he can in his free time. It’s just-- his thing. He tries hard and he works hard and he makes a  _ point  _ to be the best he can possibly be, regardless of the circumstances. It’s sort of his way of making up for the mistakes he’s made, but he’s not  _ stupid. _ He’s aware that even if he does everything right, there are some decisions people just can’t come back from. Most times, that line is almost impossibly blurry.

Sometimes, though, it isn’t.

After coming back from the Army, he takes up teaching history at a high school in the  better part of New York. He meets the girl on his third day, catches a glimpse of a sharp smile and full lips and bright eyes, watches the curious tilt of her head as she approaches him and takes the seat right in front of his desk. He watches her chat absentmindedly with her classmates, sees her in his peripheral vision, studying him when he’s lecturing, watches her tongue flicker out and over her bottom lip before she speaks, each word painfully deliberate.

The first thing Steve thinks about is a minefield, and the precarious sense of dread that comes with navigating it, painfully aware that one wrong step could ruin everything.

He’s not sure how it started. He’s not sure when professional curiosity became--  _ unprofessional. _ Somewhere along the line he started acting differently. He’d come up with excuses to be close to her, deciding to check her answers to a worksheet or an essay question even though he already knew her answers would be right, Still, she’d look up at him expectantly whenever he passed by, and wait for him to inevitably murmur some sort of praise--

And, Jesus, whenever he did, her bright eyes would go all soft and she’d just  _ glow. _

Steve would move on, down the row of desks, but he’d still be thinking about her, how she smiled, and the image of her face would follow him for the rest of the day.

It takes him a while to realize there is something wrong with what he’s doing.

She’s--  _ pretty.  _ He’s not blind and he’s still a man, despite what people might think, and he can  _ objectively  _ recognize that she’s attractive. And she’s smart, too, with a smart mouth to match, dead-set on challenging him as much as she possibly can; Steve would be lying if he said he didn’t love it. She’s his favorite student.

It takes half a year for him to realize that he has a problem. Put down plainly, it’s a fireable offense. To him, it’s basically torture.

She-- the girl-- she’s beautiful and she’s brilliant, half his size and twice as reckless and she makes him feel painfully, wonderfully  _ alive. _

She’s his  _ student.  _ It’s getting increasingly more difficult to remember that.

Steve Rogers is a good man. He’s a veteran, he’s the head of a handful of charities, he’s practically a pillar of the community with all the things he does. He kind of wishes that could cancel out the bad stuff, but it doesn’t really work like that.   
So--

Yeah. He’s going to hell.

  
  


_______________________________

  
  


The entire situation with Mr. Rogers basically starts when Alex Summers sprains your wrist during an intramural lacrosse session.

 

You’re in the middle of the hallway in front of the nurse’s door, staring at a big, laminated piece of construction paper taped across the window that reads “CLOSED AFTER 4:00” in a font that looks a lot like Comic Sans. The clock on the far wall reads 4:36. Well, you think, a little sourly, that’s just  _ great.  _

So--

On a normal day when normal things happen, this would be the point in the story where you limp back home to stick a bag of frozen peas on the rapidly swelling bruise on your wrist.

This is not a normal day.

Most of the classrooms in this hall are already closed and locked, lights off and blinds drawn, the teachers having already headed home for the afternoon.

However--

“(Name)?”

Not everyone has left.

And because you are incredibly unlucky and because the universe hates you,  _ of course  _ the teacher to find you in sweatpants and a tank top absolutely fucking  _ covered  _ in grass stains is Mr. Rogers, real-life fucking  _ Ken doll. _

“Hi,” you say, sounding a lot more defeated than you intended to, not really looking him in the eyes.

“Are you okay?” he asks, moving closer. His hand hovers by your shoulder, barely grazing your skin, and you relax into the touch with a sigh. There’s nothing strange about it-- the two of you are close, you get along well, and Mr. Rogers is a naturally physical person.

“Yeah, I, um,” you say, turning to face him. You’re cradling your wrist, and his gaze flickers down to it, a crease forming between his brows. “I hurt myself in lacrosse, and the nurse isn’t here.”

“Let me see,” he presses gently, gesturing towards your injured wrist. “It looks like it might be broken.”

You hesitate for a second, and Mr. Rogers gets this sort of kicked-puppy look on his face that you really don’t have the mental energy to say no to. “Thank you,” you say instead, and follow him back into his classroom.

It’s familiar-- you’d been here fourth period-- but it’s strange to be there after school hours. The walls are plastered with old maps, movie posters, and old war propaganda print-outs, and the projector sits on its stand at the front of the classroom, still showing a paused scene from the mini-series on WW2 you’d been watching earlier that day in class. You pull yourself up with one hand onto a counter by the door, and wait expectantly.

"How did you manage this?" Mr. Rogers asks. It's not really an accusation, but it still sort of feels like one. You shift your weight, and notice a scrape on your knee that you hadn’t noticed, skin grass-stained and sluggishly seeping blood. Great.

"I said it was an accident," you say, sounding a little petulant. The beginnings of a smile twitch at the corners of his mouth, his expression soft and open. You feel better, you realize, safe and pleasantly warm as he steps forward, moving in close to inspect a rapidly swelling bruise. His hands are large, you notice, warm and faintly calloused against your skin. It’s a sensation that would probably feel good under other circumstances.

“I’ve got it,” you say, even though you don’t make any real attempt to move away from him. “I’m not your responsibility, I don’t want to bother you.”

“I know,” he says-- his voice is warm, and inviting, and it’s altogether too easy to fall into your usual pattern of banter. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that he’s your teacher.

You look at him for a moment, and smile a little more warmly than you intended, raising an eyebrow. “You deserve a medal.”

Mr. Rogers laughs, and ducks his head, the sound sweet and low. You move a little as he steps closer, suddenly feeling trapped, and your hand slips off of the scrape on your knee, smearing blood across your skin. His eyes flicker down to it, and he shakes his head with a defeated sort of sigh.    
  
"You're bleeding,” he says.    
  
He looks at you for a moment longer before rising and crossing the room to a crooked cupboard hanging precariously above his desk, pulling out a slightly dented brown bottle of rubbing alcohol and a handful of cotton swabs.

“Just a tissue is fine,” you say. “Doesn’t really matter.”

Steve shakes his head, closes his eyes briefly and then unscrews the bottle of rubbing alcohol. He's so  _ stubborn,  _ you think, determined to help you, even though you’ve made it clear that he’s under no obligation to do so.

He’s just-- nice. Genuinely, honestly  _ nice. _

It’s strange.

Steve wipes away some of the blood with a paper towel, and you stiffen a little at the touch. He’s standing close to you, and the situation feels personal and intimate in a way it probably shouldn’t. 

He slides a hand down your calf and your skin prickles with awareness. When he urges you to extend your leg, you do it without complaining.

"Ow. Ow, hey," you mumble, squirming as he presses a cotton ball soaked in rubbing alcohol against the scrape on your knee. "Be careful."

"Oh, come on, you’re fine," he retorts, tightening his hold on your leg to keep you from moving, and-- is he smiling? No, he's not, not completely, but his lips are twitching up at the corners and his eyebrows are raised and his expression is light, teasing,  _ friendly,  _ almost, and it's-- weird. You feel warm, a sensation that’s not entirely unpleasant but still foreign enough to make you uncomfortable. He cleans out the cut, dries it and wraps a bandage neatly around the wound.  

His hands move up, tugging your arm free from where you have it tucked protectively against your stomach and pressing against the bruise with his fingers, feeling for a break in the fragile bones of your wrist.

“Not broken,” he says, after a pause. “At least, not badly. I’d still go to the doctor, if I were you.”

You nod. “Yeah.”

He doesn’t let go of your arm.

The ensuing silence lasts for a long,  _ long  _ time. You find yourself staring at him, which would have been weird if he hadn’t also been staring at you. He’s attractive, you think, but you knew that before. Obviously. You’re not  _ stupid.  _ It’s just-- now, with him so close, you’re starting to notice.

It’s not important, though. Doesn’t even really matter.

“You okay?” Mr. Rogers asks. He looks at you for a moment, and the smile on his face is warm enough to make you smile back.

“Yeah. I’m fine,” you say. “Can I go? I have to get home.”

His hands are still on your arm, thumb tracing little half-circles against your skin, and he’s standing close enough that if you were to reach out you could touch him and if you hadn’t noticed how strangely personal this interaction had become, you’re definitely noticing it now.

“Yeah,” he says, after a moment. “Of course.”

You sling your backpack over your shoulder and start to push yourself off of the counter.

That is a mistake. 

Pain flares in your bruised wrist and radiates up your arm, and you find yourself cursing and stumbling and of course because your luck is shitty and of course because the universe hates you and of course just  _ because-- _

Mr. Rogers catches you. He steadies you with arms on either side of your body and he’s warm, he’s sturdy and strong and much,  _ much  _ bigger than you are.

“You all right?” He asks, and for a second you wonder how exactly you’re supposed to respond to that. Yes and no, would be an honest answer.

He’s still standing too close.

“Yeah,” you say. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

His hands flit down over your arms, close but not quite touching, like he’s uncertain of whether or not it would be appropriate.

(it wouldn’t be appropriate.)

When you look at him, he’s a little redder than usual.

“Bye, Mr. Rogers,” you say. “And… Thanks.”

It’s not until you’re out in the hallway and the door is closed securely behind you that you find yourself wondering what, exactly, had just happened.

You get the feeling that something important has changed.

 

The next day is strange, in the sense that everything stays pretty much the same.

You come back to school with a cast on-- fractured, is the official diagnosis, not broken-- and Alex apologizes for literally all of math class despite you saying more than once that it’s really,  _ really  _ not his fault.

You find yourself anticipating third period History, but--

When you get there, nothing has changed.

Mr. Rogers lectures on and on about the role of the 101st division-- the paratroopers-- in the invasion of Normandy on D-day,  and you find yourself drifting. Your previous interaction seems all but forgotten, and that’s fine by you. It had been-- nothing. He doesn’t even seem to remember it.

When Mr. Rogers finally makes eye contact with you, you’re tapping your pen against your bottom lip, not really daydreaming but certainly not paying attention, either. He stares at you for a second, raises an eyebrow-- his eyes are so fucking  _ blue,  _ you realize, bright and piercing, and he has this weird sort of ability to make you feel vulnerable, like you’re trapped under a microscope. You have the sudden urge to fidget in your seat.

He looks away.

You don’t remember any of his lecture.

It’s not until after class that he comes up to talk to you-- and that’s only because you’re physically incapable of carrying what feels like an actual metric ton of textbooks when only one of your arms is still fully functional.

“You okay?” he asks, as the rest of the class hurries out into the hallway. The room empties almost too quickly, until it’s just the two of you left standing there, alone.

“Yeah, all great-- except, oh wait, broke my wrist, dunno if you heard,” you say, not quite managing to cover up the snarkiness in your tone as you shoot him a teasing grin. “Duh.”

Mr. Rogers raises his hands in mock defeat instead of reprimanding you-- which, if you’re being truthful, he probably should have, because your relationship sort of crosses a line in the sense that you don’t treat him with  _ nearly  _ as much respect as you probably should.

He doesn’t seem to care.

“What’s your next class?” he asks, hands flat against the desk next to yours as he leans back, shirt sleeves pushed up to his elbows-- he’s muscular and incredibly well-built and you find yourself sort of staring at his exposed forearms and the way that his wide,  _ wide  _ shoulders fill out his plain blue button-down.

“Um-- Study hall,” you say, after a pause that lasts a couple seconds too long. “So, no big deal if I’m late.”

Mr. Rogers stands up fully-- he’s much taller than you, and there’s a solidness to his body that makes you feel small and safe in comparison and it’s not really something you should be reading into or even  _ thinking  _ about, but it’s kind of hard  _ not  _ to when he’s standing so close. 

“I don’t have a class this period,” he says. “You can stay here if you want,” he trails off, leaving the end of the sentence hanging in midair, more like a question than an actual statement. Apparently, you don’t reply fast enough, because he quickly adds, “It would be easier-- you won’t have to walk all the way across the school.”

Your exhale is soft and barely audible, and Mr. Rogers half-raises an eyebrow, waiting expectantly, and you wonder if maybe you’re reading a little further into this than you really should be as your books drop back down on your desk with a hollow  _ thump.  _

“Yeah,” you say,  “Yeah, that’d be-- I mean, if you don’t mind--”

“I don’t mind,” he assures you quickly, and then he adjusts his glasses and ducks his head and the way he’s he’s smiling-- lopsided and slightly sheepish-- it makes you feel something in the pit of your stomach, and the sensation isn’t even really  _ comfortable  _ at all, it’s an all-too-familiar tightness in your gut that makes you sort of nervous in a way that you aren’t going to examine. 

The following silence is odd.

You return his smile. He looks at you for a moment, like there’s something he wants to say, something important, but he isn’t sure exactly how to word it.

“Thanks,” you say quietly.

He swallows. “No problem.”

The silence returns, and Mr. Rogers moves back towards his desk and sits down, beginning to leaf through a precariously stacked pile of student essays. You alternate between covertly watching him and doing what basically amounts to nothing on your phone, because the school wifi blocks all social media websites and you’re totally _ not  _ using your monthly data just to fuck around on Instagram. Or, for that matter, stalk your stupidly hot history teacher on facebook, which, okay, isn’t  _ nearly  _ as weird as it sounds.  

You shove your phone back into the pocket of your jacket and rummage around in your backpack for your homework. Might as well get it done.

You’re five minutes into some stupid precalculus bullshit when you realize that Mr. Rogers is looking at you. It’s not like you even really  _ see  _ it as much as you just feel a sudden sense of awareness, the chill that slinks down your spine and your sudden desire to shiver. It’s a strange feeling, but not an uncomfortable one, just a sensation that makes the room feel altogether much too small, and much too warm.

“Need any help?” Mr. Rogers says, tapping the end of his pen against the scuffed edge of his desk. Before you really get the chance to say anything, he’s standing up and moving closer, pausing less than a foot away from where your knees hang over the edge of the countertop.

You hesitate for a moment, uncharacteristically lost for words, before relaxing. “Yeah-- it’s math, though, so I dunno how much you’ll be able to help.” You lick your lips, feeling uncertain in a way that you don’t think you’ve ever really experienced before. 

You force yourself to ignore the sensation anyway.  

“Let me see,” Mr. Rogers says-- and instead of taking the paper from you or turning it so he could read it or any number of perfectly sane, perfectly  _ logical  _ things, he moves closer and he leans over your shoulder, and you notice his brow furrow in your peripheral vision as he scans the page, you hear your own blood pounding in your ears and you  _ know _ that he must hear it too, he’s obviously fucking close enough--

You chew on your bottom lip.

He inhales, exhales, each breath slow and measured--

“Can I ask you something?”

Mr. Rogers sort of-- tenses, or something, a sudden quick tightening of the muscles in his jaw that relaxes almost immediately. He leans back to look at you, but the space isn’t really enough to cause any of the tension you feel to dissipate.

“Of course.”

“Do you-- is there, like, a  _ reason  _ why you’re being so nice to me?”

He blinks, slowly, like he doesn’t quite understand the question, and then he smiles. “I like you.”

Your response is either a giggle or a snort-- you can’t really tell at this point-- and you raise an eyebrow, expression intentionally suggestive. “Yeah?”

“I--” he frowns, but the corners of his mouth are twitching upwards, and you can tell that he doesn’t really mean it. “Oh, come on, (Name).”

You’re not exactly sure what makes you actually say what you’re thinking-- it’s a shitty move, and you know it is, but you have a kind of  _ reputation  _ for being able to worsen literally any situation you could ever find yourself in, like,  _ ever,  _ so it’s not entirely  _ unexpected-- _

“I’m not saying anything. Really. It’s just-- you’ve come up with an  _ awful lot  _ of reasons to spend time with me, Mr. Rogers,” you say, and it’s pretty obvious that you don’t mean it, because you’re batting your eyelashes and simpering at him in a voice that’s too suggestive to take seriously, but--

You still probably shouldn’t have said it.

It was a bluff. Totally a bluff, fuck, you have no idea what the fuck you’re doing and even less of an idea about what you might be starting, but you’re laughing and Mr. Rogers is trying not to smile and you figure, okay, neither of you are actually doing anything  _ wrong  _ here, so-- It’s fine.

He holds his hands up. “You caught me. I’m playing favorites.”

You bite your lip to contain another bout of giggles, and sit up straighter, bringing yourself closer to him in the process. He smells good, you notice, like sandalwood and something else, something dark and slightly earthy, like the ground after it rains.

“And is that  _ all  _ you’re doing?” you retort, barely even whispering at this point.

Maybe you say it to get a rise out of him. Or maybe you don’t. Maybe you say it because you think it's true or because you  _ want  _ it to be true or maybe you say it just because you can, as you reach up and grab his tie and tug him down to your level.

“Let go,” Steve says, and then he licks his lips and he laughs, disbelieving, the sound soft and low and just strained enough for you to notice. 

The feel of the atmosphere changes, gets heavier, makes you more aware of him than you were before. And somehow-- possibly because he is Steve Rogers-- you get the feeling that he notices.

“Yeah?” you ask, acutely aware that you should stop but not quite able to bring yourself to as you wind his tie around your fingers, pulling gently, tugging him closer. 

“Let go of my tie, [Name],” he repeats. His voice has dropped low, barely a whisper, and you find yourself wondering why he even puts up with it-- with  _ you--  _ why he’s the only one who ever goes out of his way to be nice to you regardless of your attitude and you wonder if you’ve ended up maybe a little infatuated because of it, except--

That’s  _ ridiculous. _

your grip loosens on his tie and he has enough slack to move away but he doesn’t. Not immediately. He just kind of looks at you, and you look back, you acknowledge that yeah, Steve Rogers has perfect bone structure and kind eyes and ridiculously broad shoulders and that maybe you’re a little attracted to him but like, who  _ isn’t,  _ honestly? It doesn’t mean anything.

“Relax,” you whisper, “I’m just messing with you.” 

He still--  _ still-- _ doesn’t move away. 

He’s handsome, you think, strong and tall and well-built in a way that would be threatening if he wasn’t so unfailingly  _ kind _ . You’re close enough that you can see the smattering of blond stubble on his jaw as it catches the afternoon light streaming in from the window across the room, and you can see that his nose is slightly crooked-- just slightly-- like it’s been broken before and never quite healed the same, you can see that there is a faint pink scar right above his left eyebrow, old and barely-visible--

He sighs, low and defeated, and moves closer, and it takes a second for your brain to actually process what’s about to happen because the reality of the situation hasn’t quite set in yet, and it feels like your thoughts have all just short-circuited.

Your eyes are still open when he kisses you.

And--

It takes less than a second for you to relax into it, to lean forward and let your eyelids flutter closed and after that, it’s almost _funny_ how fast you practically fucking _dissolve_ against him as his hand cups the back of your neck and his fingers tangle in your hair, guiding you forward as his mouth slants over yours and you can’t help but think about how much _better_ this is than any of the fumbling first kisses with the boys your age and--

The dismissal bell rings and echoes around the halls outside and suddenly you feel like you’ve been dunked in cold water and finally come up for air.

And Mr. Rogers--

He blinks, and moves back, and the air goes cold.

“I--” You say, completely blank. “I have to-- I have to catch the bus, so I should-- go. Probably.”

He licks his lips and he nods and he doesn’t quite make eye contact. “Yeah.”

(He doesn’t offer to help you with your books this time.)   
  



	2. Float On

( _ the aftermath _ )

 

Steve leaves the school early and nobody suspects a thing. It’s a Friday, everyone’s eager to leave; he mumbles a half-assed excuse involving hitting the gym and then catching up on TV to any coworkers who are curious. To him, it hardly sounds believable, but nobody else even  _ bats an eye,  _ not even Stark, who he was sure would  _ love  _ an opportunity to tear him down.

He drives home with the radio turned up as loud as he can feasibly stand, grip so tight around his steering wheel that his knuckles turn white, but even that’s not enough to keep his mind off of it, stop the memory from unfolding again and again in the back of his mind--

Steve glances at the clock on his dashboard.  _ 4:37,  _ it reads, in glowing neon green.

So it was a little more than two hours ago, just about, when he kissed his student.

And--

There has to be a logical explanation for it, he thinks, finally allowing himself to dwell on what had happened-- maybe he had been overtired, or stressed, or drugged, or  _ something,  _ because he couldn’t have been thinking straight. The thought lingers in the back of his head that maybe he  _ had  _ been thinking straight and maybe, there wasn’t an excuse for his behavior; maybe it was just  _ him,  _ giving in to a stupid, useless,  _ idiotic  _ temptation.

It doesn’t have to mean anything. 

(It does, though, because that’s how the world works. Everything has meaning.)

Steve takes a right turn off of the main road with an unnecessary amount of aggression, swearing quietly under his breath as his car’s tires skid and squeal against the crumbling pavement. 

Kissing her had been-- different, in a way he hadn’t expected. Her lips were soft, and warm, and she hadn’t rushed it as much as she just sat there and let him guide her, and it was unexpected how easily her body fit to his. It was-- precise. Like they were  _ meant  _ to--

Steve swallows past the rapidly-forming lump in his throat. 

He won’t think about her.

He’s not going to think about her.

He  _ can’t. _

A car horn cuts abruptly through the almost suffocating silence, and Steve takes in a shaky breath, frowning as he realizes he’d forgotten his turn signal.

The enormity of the situation hasn’t fully clicked yet, he figures, because although he knows logically that he’ll probably get fired for this, it hasn’t registered. If he’s being honest, he’s not even thinking about it.

He’s still--

The  _ kiss. _

Her skin was so smooth, like satin-- it almost didn’t feel like it was actually  _ there,  _ like she was something ethereal and not-quite-real that his imagination had somehow dreamed up. And she’d made this sound when he kissed her-- a gasp, maybe, or just a shaky release of the breath she’d been holding-- and then she had kissed him  _ back,  _ and as much as he wants to think that he’s disgusted by it, he isn’t. He’d  _ liked  _ it, liked how uncertain she had been, liked the way that her hands stumbled across his chest like she hadn’t exactly been sure what to do with them, how she’d relaxed into his body when he moved in closer even though her response should have been to do the complete opposite. She should have pushed him away.

She didn’t.

And Steve  _ liked  _ it. That’s the real problem, he thinks, swerving recklessly into his driveway and braking a little harder than necessary. The real problem is that he doesn’t regret it. The real problem is that if he had the opportunity, if he  _ knew  _ nothing bad would come of it-- he’d probably do it again. Regardless of how ridiculously fucking  _ unethical  _ it was.

Steve groans, and drops his head onto the steering wheel.

There has to be something wrong with him.

He has two days to work through this, and then he’s seeing her again.

(He shouldn’t be looking forward to it.)

 

\-----------------------------------

 

The weekend does not pass quickly.

Of course it doesn’t. You are many things, but you aren’t  _ that  _ lucky. The hours drag and the minutes creep and every second seems to find a new and imaginative way of grating on your already frazzled nerves, and you find yourself flitting from one meaningless task to the next, unable to actually focus on anything for more than a few moments at a time. 

Mr. Rogers  _ kissed  _ you.

It’s-- unsurprisingly-- all you can think about.

And, okay, yeah, there’s a part of you that wants to go gossip to  _ everyone _ like the schoolgirl you undoubtedly still are, because Mr. Rogers-- living Ken-doll, with his gorgeous face and too-broad shoulders and distractingly muscular  _ everything--  _ kissed  _ you.  _ There’s not a girl in the school who wouldn’t be at least a little jealous.

It’s not like you’re  _ stupid,  _ though _.  _ He’d lose his job, and you know that. But, like--  _ still.  _ You wanted, desperately, to tell someone about it-- maybe because talking about it or even mentioning what had happened out loud would somehow make it feel more  _ real,  _ and less like a crazy, sleep-deprived daydream.

It  _ was  _ real, though, which is somehow simultaneously better and worse than if it had been some figment of your overactive imagination. It’s--

complicated.

When Monday finally,  _ finally  _ comes, it doesn’t seem to matter anyway.

You walk in and take your seat at the front as per usual, backpack slung over one shoulder and books awkwardly held against your hip beneath your non-injured arm. You’re the first one there, which is normal, but something is-- _off,_ this time, and it takes less than a second for you to notice the particular awkwardness that hangs heavy in the air, almost like a fog. The silence is abrupt and kind of suffocating and for once you find yourself unwilling to open your mouth.

Something is wrong. Mr. Rogers hasn’t even looked up at you, or even made any attempt to acknowledge your existence at all. He’s at the board, writing something in black marker, his back turned to you in a way that’s too dismissive to be  anything but deliberate. When he turns around to scan the classroom, he gives you the same cursory, bland smile that he gives everyone else. He doesn’t even pause to really look at you-- instead, his eyes are focused on a point slightly above your head, and the coldness of the gesture makes your stomach churn with something you refuse to label as dread. 

Right. Okay. 

You lower your gaze, and swallow past the sudden lump in your throat. A small, cruel part of your brain wonders why you’d even expected anything from him in the first place-- you’re a student, and he’s a teacher, and there are a million reasons why he  _ wouldn’t  _ instigate anything else with you and a hundred more why he straight-up  _ can’t,  _ but--

_ Stupidly,  _ you’d thought that maybe--

You’re not even sure what you thought was going to happen, you realize, but it doesn’t matter at this point. With a sigh, you tear your eyes away from the front of the classroom, and toss your bag underneath your chair, determined to focus on something else. 

It’s not that big of a deal, you reason, knowing full well that you’re basically flat-out lying to yourself.

Mr. Rogers passes out a worksheet that’s been photocopied so much it’s hardly readable, wastes a few minutes explaining it to a class that isn’t paying attention, and then retreats back to his desk. You scribble down answers without retaining any of the material at all.

He doesn’t acknowledge you in anything more than a professional capacity, not even when you walk right up to his desk to hand the finished paper in. He just takes it, and murmurs something inaudible, and you’re just kind of left standing there, stranded, struggling for something to  _ say. _

Ultimately, though, you don’t say anything. You look at him, and he doesn’t look at you, and then you walk back to your desk.

You spend the rest of class staring moodily at the clock. It’s not like you’re actively going to try for his attention-- if he wants to be a fucking  _ baby  _ about this entire goddamn thing, then  _ fine. _

Or, you know.

Not fine.

It doesn’t even make any fucking  _ sense.  _ It hadn’t been your fault, not entirely, anyway--  _ he’d  _ kissed  _ you,  _ not the other way around, and yeah, maybe you’d been pushing him a little bit,  _ maybe _ you’d made some not-so-great decisions that led to that whole  _ incident,  _ but--

It’s his fault, too, which is why this entire thing is so fucking  _ annoying,  _ because instead of just fessing up to the mistake and moving on, he acts like it was nothing and that he doesn’t even know you exist when both of those statements are pretty obviously  _ not true.  _ It’s that weird phenomenon that sometimes happens where suddenly the kid is acting more like an adult than the, you know,  _ actual fucking adult. _

It’s not  _ fair,  _ you think, more than a little petulantly. You frown, idly running the sharpened point of your pencil through the marks another student had carved into the desk with what you assume was a pair of scissors. The classroom is silent except for the sound of pens scribbling and the incessant, slightly grating tick of the clock mounted on the far wall above the door. You find yourself itching to leave, a mixture of boredom and sour, brittle anger settling in the pit of your stomach like acid.

Out of habit, you glance up at his desk, expecting a smile or a glance or really anything at all, because as much as you hate to admit it, you’ve gotten kind of used to always having him in your corner. He’s looking at you, you realize. His expression is guarded, eyes strangely unreadable, swirling with a flurry of emotions that you can’t identify. 

When you meet his gaze, he looks away, and you’re helplessly dismayed at how much it actually  _ hurts. _

\-------------------------

 

“Are you all right, (Name)?” 

You sigh, and dejectedly push the mass of what probably was supposed to be mashed potatoes around your styrofoam lunch tray with your spoon. The cafeteria is slowly filling up with students, the low murmur of conversation steadily growing into a moderate hum in the background. Pietro Maximoff nudges your books to the side and sits down on the hard plastic chair next to you, fixing you with an expectant look.

“Yeah,” You answer, “Fine. Wish they would give us, like,  _ real  _ food, that’s all.”

“Wanda just got out of cooking class, she will share,” he mumbles, pulling the top off of a sealed tupperware container filled with pasta,  mixed in with an unidentifiable type of meat. It smells good, and probably also tastes good, you think, a little envious. Something his sister made, of course, because while Pietro is a brilliant soccer player and incredibly good at like,  _ everything, _ math included, he can’t cook for  _ shit.  _

“I’m fine,” you mumble, sinking the plastic tongs of your fork into a disturbingly mushy green bean. “Not really hungry, anyway.” 

“You sound awful,” Pietro responds around a mouthful of food, with his characteristic lack of tact. “Are you getting sick?”

“Nah.” 

You watch as an unappetizing glob of mashed potatoes sort of pathetically  _ slinks  _ off of your spoon and lands in a grey puddle of mush on your tray.

“You are sure?” He asks again.

You roll your eyes, and fix Pietro with a moody glare. “Yes.”

He shrugs, and turns back to his food. Over his head, you can see Mr. Rogers standing awkwardly in the lunch line, shoulders tucked in and posture sort of scrunched up like he’s trying to make himself somehow appear like he’s not a good head taller than the entirety of the student body, and roughly three-fourths of the staff.

It’s not really working.

Under another set of circumstances, it would probably be funny. 

Right now, though-- 

Right now, it really  _ isn’t. _

You resolutely turn your attention back to the table just in time to see Alex Summers take the seat across from you and wordlessly offer you his jello-cup.

“Don’t tell me you still feel bad,” you say, injecting as much cheerfulness into your tone as you can manage, despite how unconvincing it seems. You’re a firm believer in faking it until it feels real, and if that’s what it’s going to take, then-- fine. Whatever. Who cares. 

You certainly don’t.

Alex grimaces, and glances at the cast on your wrist. “‘Course I feel bad.”

“That’s because you’re stupid,” you say automatically.

Pietro snickers.

Alex opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again.

“Shut up,” he grumbles, ripping off the tab on his jello cup and stabbing his plastic spoon into it with a little more force than necessary.  

You choke back a snort and raise an eyebrow at him, and the tips of his ears flush bright red in response.

“Where’s Wanda?” He asks, changing the subject.

Pietro shrugs, mumbling something intelligible with his mouth full and barely managing to avoid spilling pasta sauce on his white t-shirt, which would have been an unmitigated and hilarious disaster.

“You’re such a fucking  _ mess, _ ” you say, grinning at him. You feel better, now, with your friends; disappointment had been following you around since Mr. Rogers’ class like one of those dumb cliche  _ storm clouds  _ from the cartoons, and that feeling is just now starting to dissipate.

He rolls his eyes. “Wanda-- she  is supposed t’be making up a test,” Pietro repeats, after swallowing and wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “With Mr. Rogers.”

The cloud returns.

You make a face, and poke at your mashed potatoes with your plastic spoon as if they suddenly became the most interesting thing on the planet. Pietro gives you an odd look, but says nothing. Across the table, Alex noisily unwraps his Nature Valley granola bar and, predictably, gets crumbs fucking  _ everywhere. _

“You know,” Pietro says, and his voice is hesitant, like he’s testing the waters, like he’s not entirely sure what’s wrong and definitely not sure if he can do anything to help your shitty mood but willing to try anyway, “If you are feeling bad, you could go home after classes are over. Coach will understand.”

You frown as the words register, realization dawning, and then drop your head down onto the cafeteria table with a dull  _ thud.  _ “We have lacrosse,” you whine. “Aw,  _ fuck,  _ I totally forgot.”

“Yeah, but,” Alex says through a mouthful of granola, “S’not important, though. The girls’ team isn’t great-- no offense-- and it’s not like you’ll miss anything. You don’t have to go.”

You shake your head somewhat sullenly. “Nope. I can’t skip, my parents will have my _ass,”_ you respond, stabbing at the undercooked green beans piled onto your tray until your fork punctures the styrofoam beneath them with a satisfying crunch.  “But if he makes us run fucking suicides again, I swear to god the only suicide on that goddamn field will be _mine._ ”

Pietro scoffs, lips twitching into an irritatingly cocky half-grin. “Barnes is twice as tough on the soccer team.”

Alex rolls his eyes, opening his mouth to respond, and you easily tune out the good natured conversation-slash-argument that inevitably erupts between them over which is more difficult, like it’s an actual thing that matters in  _ high school sports. _

The rest of lunch seems to pass in an almost hazy blur, the two boys’ familiar voices fading into the background until they become a meaningless hum of sound. You’re not paying attention anymore and almost immediately your thoughts wander back to Mr. Rogers and you find yourself wondering what he’s doing right now-- if he’s thinking about what had happened, or thinking about  _ you _ . 

Soon, the sound of the lunch bell crackles through the outdated intercom above the cafeteria door. Alex picks up your books without being asked and shoots you another endlessly apologetic grimace which you don’t even bother to correct at this point; nothing you say will stop him from feeling badly about your arm. Instead, you let out a pensive, tired sigh, and sling your backpack over your shoulder with one hand. Pietro smiles and groans about math class and you say something sarcastic in return without really even thinking about it, and Alex grins and barks out a laugh and bumps shoulders with you.

Basically--

Life goes on.

\-------------------

Elsewhere, Steve receives a very loud and very  _ rude  _ awakening in the form of Bucky Barnes and his complete disregard for anything even  _ vaguely _ resembling tact.

In retrospect, he knows, it’s not surprising that Bucky is the first one to realize something is wrong. Bucky  _ knows  _ him-- probably better than anyone else in his life right now-- and he can read him like a book without so much as  _ trying.  _

That’s probably why Steve even lets him get away with interrogating him like this in the first place.

“So what the hell is wrong with you today, huh?” Bucky says, dragging up a chair to the side of Steve’s desk and straddling it backwards. Steve looks him up and down, takes in the skin-tight silver Adidas muscle tank and the stereotypical basketball shorts and genuinely wonders, not for the first time, how he managed to get a job at a high school while simultaneously looking like every senior varsity football jock ever.

“Nothing’s wrong, Buck,” Steve says, immediately realizing that he had hesitated for a moment too long before answering. This isn’t like him-- he’s not usually this...  _ off,  _ which isn’t something he wants to examine in any amount of detail.

Bucky raises an eyebrow and scoots his chair closer and rumbles out a disbelieving laugh, letting the following silence drag on as if he’s waiting for Steve to correct the very obvious lie. 

“Jesus,” he sighs, when Steve doesn’t respond. “Spit it out, will you? You’re such a shitty liar.”

Steve grimaces and crosses his arms and scrambles for something reasonable to say-- something that Buck won’t immediately be able to see through-- but he can’t think of anything. He can hardly think,  _ period,  _ and it’s only twelve-thirty on a  _ Monday. _

“Just-- a student’s been giving me some trouble, that’s all,” he manages, resisting the urge to lay his head down on his desk and maybe just  _ sleep  _ for the rest of his lunch break. 

Bucky shoots him a look of understanding-- except he  _ doesn’t  _ understand, Steve thinks, he can’t  _ possibly  _ understand. Normal people-- they don’t do this, they don’t make mistakes this  _ awful.  _

“Okay,” Bucky says, after a minute. “If that’s all, I’ll leave it alone.”

Steve sighs, a mixture of relief and shame, and gives Bucky a nod. “That’s all. I’m just-- more tired than usual, I guess.”

Bucky nods slowly, like he’s considering the merit of what he just said. Steve can see how his expression changes, flickers with confusion and then something almost like understanding-- something probably closer to sympathy, he thinks. Steve looks down at his lukewarm cafeteria lunch and spears a wilted green bean with the tongs of his plastic fork, trying to ignore the suddenly pressing silence. Their interaction seems-- tense, but he can’t tell whether he’s imagining it or not.

He’s never really been good at keeping secrets.

 

\----------------------------------------

 

Practice is--

Weird.

Not good weird or bad weird, just--

_ Weird. _

“Okay,” Coach Barnes says, with a slightly apologetic smile thrown in your direction, “We’re not going to be doing coed practice today after Friday’s disaster. So, I want everyone to give me two laps around the field to start, and then pair off and start running the passing drills I had you learn last week. Sound good?”

A collective groan ripples through the girls crowded around him, and you watch from your not-quite-comfortable spot on the bleachers as the team somehow manages to scrounge up enough energy to start a halfhearted jog around the perimeter of the field, leaving you on the bleachers with your broken arm, basically a glorified benchwarmer.

_ It could be worse,  _ you think, while simultaneously drawing a blank on any ways it could, you know,  _ actually _ be any worse.

On the other side of the field, Wanda and someone you assume is probably Alex’s friend, what’s-her-face-- Raven-- pull ahead of the rest of the team. Raven’s athletic, and Wanda is-- well, Wanda. She’s not as fast as her brother, but she’s determined, or just flat-out stubborn, and that mostly makes up for it. 

Distantly, you register Coach yell out something to the rest of the team, but your brain doesn’t bother putting any energy into figuring out what he’s saying. It’s not like it matters, anyway. For the next six weeks you’ll spend an hour and a half twice a week watching other people play a sport that you didn’t even want to do in the first place, which is somehow  _ worse  _ having to participate.

“Feeling okay?”

You start, unceremoniously jerked out of what you don’t really want to admit was a pity party (but still totally was, regardless). Coach Barnes fixes you with a crooked, somewhat bashful grin, tucking his clipboard under his arm as he takes the spot on the bench next to you.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just-- Tired, I guess.”

Barnes chuckles. “Yeah, well, you’re supposed to be  _ resting.” _

You roll your eyes, looking back out at the field. “I’m-- I swear, Coach, I’m fine,” you huff semi-indignantly, wrapping your arms around yourself in an attempt to ward off most of the cold. “I’m just-- I’m tired of  _ this.  _ I hate being stuck here while everyone else gets to practice. It’s boring.”

Coach lets out a bemused chuckle. “You don’t even like lacrosse.”

“Yeah.” You sigh. “Yeah, I know.”

Barnes doesn’t reply. He just sort of sits there, staring pensively out onto the field, and there’s this weird moment of mutual understanding as the two of you watch the rest of the team finish the warm-up laps and gradually form a huddle around the bleachers. He sits up a little, shifts back into Coach-mode and barks some instruction out at the girls that you ignore on the basis that it does not whatsoever apply to your currently wounded self.

You slump down against the back of the bench and try to pretend that it’s a good few degrees warmer as the team splits into groups to run passing drills. Barnes looks at you. You look at the field and resolutely  _ not  _ at him, in the hopes of avoiding further interaction with another human being.

“So,” Barnes says conversationally as the team disperses back onto the field, “How the  _ hell  _ are you going to manage this for six more weeks?”

You shrug, still not making eye contact. “Guess I’ll just die,” you respond, in near-perfect monotone.

“Sounds like a plan,” Barnes answers, absolutely unfazed.

You don’t say anything in return, and the silence stretches, until it gets to the point where you’re wondering why Barnes hasn’t just…  _ left.  _

“Seriously, (Name).” He shuffles awkwardly, and then says, “Y’know I’m here if you need to-- I don’t know, talk, or something.”

There’s another silence, this one a lot more uncomfortable. Coach isn’t really a people person, isn’t particularly good at understanding half the teenage drama that goes on between the girls on the team, usually has to have even the most basic human emotions spelled out for him-- but he’s honest, at least, and you know that he does genuinely care about the team. It’s-- nice. It’s like how it was with Mr. Rogers, before-- well. Before everything, you suppose.

Coach Barnes is different. He likes to talk sports and you like to talk shit and everything sort of balances out on its own. There’s no drama.

“I’m fine, Coach,” You mumble, squinting out at the field. “Just… A bad week, that’s all.”

“It’s Monday.”

You sigh, and hold out your hand, palm up. A raindrop lands, and then another, and another, until you can see them sinking into the dusty ground beneath your feet.

“Yeah,” you groan. “I know.”


	3. Think Fast (Or Don't)

 

In some ways, it gets easier for Steve as time goes on, but in some ways it— doesn’t.

He’s able to make  _ eye contact  _ now, at least, and as the weeks slide on he and (Name) manage to settle back into something that’s just about as close to normal as they’re able to get, considering.

She doesn’t come to his room during study hall anymore, which is equal parts good and bad. Steve misses the company-- misses  _ her  _ company-- but he knows enough to stop himself from seeking it out. It doesn’t matter to him where she chooses to spend her free time. It’s  _ fine.  _ It’s all fine.  _ He’s  _ fine.

He’s so,  _ so  _ totally not, though. Every time she walks into a room it’s like his thoughts just dissolve and his brain switches off and he forgets how to behave like an actual functioning adult and if he doesn’t keep an iron grip on his own thought processes he finds himself stuck reliving that day over and over and  _ over  _ like some terrible sort of torture.

He’s better at hiding it. The biggest issue now is just the  _ dreams. _

It’s been getting easier for him to maintain some semblance of professionalism in the classroom and  _ harder  _ for him to keep his subconscious mind away from what is frankly  _ dangerous territory.  _ His dreams become a veritable minefield, mainly centering around what it would feel like to kiss her again, which is something he is  _ not allowed to think about. _

He still dreams about it, though. About kissing her.  _ Touching  _ her.

Steve grits his teeth and stares down at the test he’s attempting to grade. His eyes are unfocused and the words are sliding across his vision like beads of water on glass and he wonders, vaguely, how this girl managed to somehow turn him back into some sort of infatuated teenager. Because that’s what he  _ feels like.  _ Impulsive, and stupid, and reckless, and incredibly out of his depth considering he’s supposed to be an adult.

Irritated, he taps his pen against the edge of his desk, forcing his eyes to focus on the scribbled handwriting in front of him.

It doesn’t matter, he tells himself. He’ll survive.

Of course he will.

If there’s one thing Steve’s good at, it’s surviving.

 

\---------------------------------------

  
  


The week is painful, and then there’s a long weekend-- Labor Day-- and you hope, a little desperately, that it’s enough of a break to make going back to school somewhat more manageable. Mr. Rogers avoids you, but not as much as before, which is better but also kind of worse because it just makes you realize that this-- whatever it is-- it’s never going to go away. The two of you will never be back to normal. 

And it sucks.

Which is why you’re determined not to think about it. It’s over. Life goes on. You gave yourself a week to sulk and bitch and pine after him and then you ultimately decided to get your ass into gear and continue on as if nothing had changed. You still have to finish school, dumb history teacher or not. 

It’s just going to be a little harder now, is all. But you’ll deal with it, just like you deal with everything else.

“Morning, Alex,” you mumble through a yawn, sliding into the hard plastic chair next to him. Advanced Biology was a shit class to have first period, and not having two fully functioning limbs makes everything at least twice as difficult.

At least Alex isover his need to apologize for breaking your arm every fucking five seconds.

“Oh, uh-- morning, (Name),” he responds, blinking bleary-eyed over a half-filled cup of crappy cafeteria coffee. “You able to do the titration-whatever today? Stayed up all last night working on an english essay and I drank so much coffee my hands are shaking. I feel like I’m astral projecting.”

“Okay, well, astral project somewhere else,” you say, grinning, shoving him away when he slumps against your shoulder. “I’ll work the actual titrating, but you’re writing down all the data. And make it  _ readable  _ this time, or Stark’s going to fail you.”

“I hope he does,” Alex says with a scoff. 

“You hope I what?” Mr. Stark asks, appearing behind Alex’s left shoulder like some sort of apparition of bad luck. 

_ Ouch.  _

Alex actually fucking  _ wilts,  _ stumbling over his words in an attempt to rectify the situation without any amount of success. It’s kind of like watching a natural disaster unfold in front of you.

. “No- Nothing,” he announces, voice both crackly and loud in the sudden silence as the entire classroom seems to hone in on his misfortune like a bunch of scavenging vultures. You know, if vultures scavenged immeasurable amounts of embarrassment instead of, like,  _ bones,  _ or whatever.

“Right,” Mr. Stark drawls, with a smug grin that stretches ear to ear. “Glad to hear it.”

You try, and fail, to stifle your laughter, using your one good arm to steady the titration whatever-it’s-called over the beaker, squinting at the faded lettering on the side of the tube and trying to pretend like you’re doing something other than making fun of your lab partner’s misfortune.

(You’re not.)

“Appreciate the support,” Alex grumbles, bright red and sulking as Mr. Stark walks away towards the front of the classroom. 

“Anytime,” you say, tone kind of exaggeratedly sarcastic in a way that would probably get you punched if Alex wasn’t a total pushover who would put up with basically  _ anything,  _ particularly after breaking your arm.

“Just-- titrate, or whatever,” he grumbles, snatching up his notebook. “And shut up.”

So--

Neither of you are all that good at titrating, you find out quickly. The liquid in the little beaker held beneath the titration-tube-thing-whatever-- it’s supposed to be, like, kind of a pale see-through pink by the end of the class.

Yours is neon.

Like.

_ Neon. _

It’s not like you’re a scientist or anything, but you’re going to make the assumption that it means you did something wrong.

“Oops,” you say, shrugging your backpack over one shoulder as Alex trails behind you through the doorway somewhat dejectedly. “Okay, so who’s ready to forge all of the data for the write-up?”

“I’ll just steal it from Hank,” Alex says, squinting up at the sun through the dusty hallway window at the ever-present gray of the overcast sky outside. 

“Hey, uh, listen,”  he mumbles suddenly, urging you towards one side of the hall so as to avoid the stampede of freshmen still capable of energy at eight in the morning. “So-- uh, I have to go to math--”

“I know,” you say. 

“Yeah, but there’s more,” he says impatiently, leaning up against the scuffed blue lockers in a way that’s probably supposed to be nonchalant but just comes across as really,  _ really  _ awkward. “Homecoming. Next friday.”

You blink and fumble for something to say in response-- it’s not really a question, is it? No, you decide, it’s not, but the implication is still pretty fucking clear, regardless--He was asking you to homecoming. Was that a thing? Were the two of you a  _ thing?  _ Had that somehow happened without you being aware of it?

The silence drags on, and Alex absentmindedly starts cracking the knuckles on his left hand, one by one by one.

“I heard,”  you answer, a beat too late. “So-- you want to go?”

He swallows, and nods, the movement jerky and uncoordinated. “Yeah. I mean, if you want. As friends. Or-- not as friends. I don’t know.” 

The laugh that bubbles out of your chest isn’t really intentional, but it’s not mean.. 

“Okay,” you say, because there’s not really much else  _ to  _ say. This entire fucking thing is kind of surreal.

“Okay,” Alex repeats, expression uncertain. “I’ll see you, then?”

“Yeah.” You’re not quite able to pinpoint the reason why you’re hesitating. It’s  _ Alex. _ You’ve known him since you were, like,  _ seven. _ This is fine. 

This is normal. 

“Yeah,” you say, forcing down your doubt. “See you.”

\----------------------

  
  


The school runs on an A/B day schedule, meaning you only have to suffer through an hour and a half of US History with Mr. Rogers every other day, so the rest of the day drags by without a problem.

Thank god for small mercies.

“The boys have track today,” Wanda Maximoff says, accent slightly thicker than usual as you follow her out of what had probably been the most difficult pre-calc quiz of your entire  _ life. _ Stepping out into the crowded hallway after the surreal experience of sitting in a dead-silent classroom for a little under two hours feels like being doused in cold water, and you shake your head to dispel the throbbing ache between your eyes at the uncomfortable level of noise.

__ “You are coming?” Wanda was asking, when you regain your bearings, “Pietro says you may be sick.”

“I’m not sick,” you say, unsurprised that her brother had told her that-- half the time it’s like the two of them share the same mind, which would be cool if it wasn’t so fucking  _ creepy.  _ “Won’t be there, though. I have physical therapy.”

Wanda’s brow pinches right in the middle, and she chews on the inside of her cheek.  “You have what?”

“Physical therapy,” you repeat, nodding your gratitude when she opens the door to the sports fields for you and your useless arm. “It’s like... when you do a bunch of exercises to try and make a muscle stronger after it gets messed up. They want me to go for a couple of weeks for my arm because the doctor said something happened to, like, my tendon, or something. I dunno. Sounded like a good idea, and I’m not the one paying for it, so…” you shrug.

“I understand,” Wanda replies, nodding sagely.

“It’s not like anyone’s going to care if I miss track today, right?,” you continue, twirling your car keys around in your fingers, not sure whether you’re attempting to defend your absence to Wanda or to yourself. “I’m just the manager, and it’s not a meet, just a practice. Plus, I have a pretty good reason, considering--”

“Alex will be disappointed,” Wanda interrupts, flashing a wickedly knowing smile.

Yikes.

You try to pretend that the sudden lurching feeling in the pit of your stomach is something slightly more romantic than it actually is— butterflies, maybe, instead of all-encompassing  _ dread.  _ By now you’ve arrived at the realization that you aren’t  _ actually  _ capable of handling the whole homecoming situation and definitely not able to handle the whole  _ date  _ situation, but are still somehow determined to see it through, regardless.

“He told you?” You ask, too worn-out to be anything other than resigned at this point.

“He did,” Wanda affirms, still grinning. 

You catch her gaze for a second, and she’s smirking at you like she knows something you don’t. A part of your mind reminds you that Wanda’s been top of your grade since she was eleven. She probably knows _ lots _ of shit that you don’t, most of it not pertaining to you or Alex or  _ this,  _ at all.

The thought is comforting. Slightly.

“What did he tell you?” you ask.

Wanda shrugs. “He asked you to homecoming, you said yes.”  
Okay. It’s not like there’s much more to tell anyway, you think, wondering why that knowledge does absolutely nothing to dispel your anxiety.

Wanda doesn’t say much else, and you’re grateful for it, choosing to not delve into much detail over why the whole homecoming situation is causing you so much stress. Instead, you find yourself focusing elsewhere, looking up as the two of you walk along the outskirts of the fields to the parking lot. The sky had cleared up since chemistry that morning, mostly blue now, save for a few wisps of clouds on the horizon, but even the sun isn’t enough to chase off the ever-present chill of autumn that had crept into the air.

“I should go,” you say, and your little dinky Honda Civic flashes and chirps twice when you hit the unlock button on your slightly scuffed key fob. “Gotta get to physical therapy.”

Wanda shrugs and hoists her backpack up on one shoulder. “I have to wait until Pietro has finished track. I will see you tomorrow for history, yes?”

Oh. Right.

You yank open the driver’s side door of your car hard enough that the hinges squeak in protest.

“Yeah.”

————

 

The address your doctor had given you brings you to a low-set, white brick building off the main road that leads right through town, connected on one end to a crazy-expensive new age gym and some sort of divorce lawyer’s office on the other. The receptionist is friendly and the room she brings you to is spacious and bright, filled with an unidentifiable variety of machines and exercise balls and fucking  _ yoga mats  _ and the instructor that greets you has a side-shaved haircut and a tattoo of a rose on her shoulder disappearing beneath her shirt sleeve and a half empty starbucks cup in her hand and—

And you’re  _ over it. _ She looks like every Instagram fitness instructor that somehow winds up on your explore feed despite your complete lack of interest in exercise as a whole. 

That realization makes it a lot harder to take anything seriously.

“Sorry,” the instructor is saying, when you finally focus on something other than baselessly stereotyping her in an attempt to make yourself feel better, “We’re a  _ teensy  _ bit short-staffed today, so I’ll have to bounce around between patients-- my other four’o’clock should be here in just a second and then we can get started. You’re both struggling with the same type of injury, thank god, so I can work with you both at once…”

You tune her out again. She doesn’t really stop talking, not even when she sets you up on the little exercise bike in the corner by the window to get warmed up, or, you know. Whatever. You space out to the tinny sounds of 80s music blaring from the wall-mounted speakers as she goes to help someone else struggling with a weight system, staring silently out the window and counting down the minutes until you can go home.

“(Name)?”

after fighting off the initial gut feeling of  _ oh god how the hell does anybody here know me _ , you blink and shake your head and force yourself to refocus on the person speaking.

“Coach?”

You assume your confusion is pretty evident in your face. It’s definitely Coach Barnes-- muscle tank and basketball shorts and messy-haired confused half-smile, and you wonder briefly what the fuck he’s doing here.

You realize two things at once. One being you’ve never seen him without his sports jacket on, and another being that his left arm has  _ a lot  _ of scars. The connection at that point is pretty fucking obvious. Your instagram-blogger physical therapist’s four’o’clock is your fucking  _ lacrosse coach. _

That’s--

Weird.

 

“Didn’t know that you went here,” Coach says, apparently unfazed by the entire situation. You’re thankful for it-- his nonchalance takes the edge off of your own discomfort. “Your wrist, huh?”

You nod, looking at the bright green timer on the interface of the bike instead of making eye contact, watching the seconds tick by, one by one by one. “Yeah.”

Coach makes what you assume is a sympathetic face somewhere in your peripheral vision.

“So-- do you, like, work here, or…?” you say, not quite sure what to do to fill the awkward silence-- of course you know he doesn’t work there, but the alternative is drawing pretty fucking uncomfortable attention to whatever happened to his arm, and that seems-- wrong. Rude. Both?

“No?” Coach raises an eyebrow, taking the exercise bike next to you and setting the resistance up wicked high, like he somehow needs to show off that he’s basically inhuman. You’re barely moving the pedals at half his speed and you feel like you’re dying.

Nice.

“Got an appointment,” he says, still smiling. He shrugs and gestures with a short nod to his arm. “Figured that much was obvious.”

“Figured you didn’t want me to point it out,” you shoot back. 

“Thanks,” he says, “But it’s no big deal.”

The physical therapist-- Julie, Jessica, something like that-- interrupts your conversation with a pretty obviously fake smile. “James! Right on time. We’re short staffed, so I’ll be bouncing around today.” She nods to you and the smile gets a little strained,“You two know each other?”

Coach-- oh, god, you totally can’t ever think of him as  _ James,  _ that’s way too formal for somebody that dresses like they’re still in a frat house-- he looks at her and smiles and says seamlessly, “Yeah, a little.”

You flash him a grateful smile, glad that he avoided whatever awkwardness would ensue upon explaining that he coaches the high school lacrosse team. He isn’t, like,  _ old,  _ but still there’s a certain level of social expectation around the whole situation. Students and teachers don’t talk in public-- they make minimal eye contact and keep their heads down and ignore each other. It’s like an unspoken agreement. 

Coach Barnes, though, isn’t really a  _ teacher,  _ you think, at least not in the traditional sense. He doesn’t act like it. He’s closer to a friend, or a really chill RA— Half the time you were on the bench was spent talking shit with him about something. He’s not exactly stuck-up.

“Great.” Julie is still talking, you realize suddenly. “Since you two are running the same exercises, James, would you mind helping out? Just so that we can get things moving.”

Coach Barnes shrugs; he stops the bike and climbs off with a short exhale, rolls his shoulders experimentally and shoots you a grin. “Yeah, sure, stick me with the rookie, doc.”

Julie smiles and cracks some not-funny joke that you laugh at out of sympathy, and then flits off to whoever else needs her condescendingly positive brand of attention, leaving you and Coach Barnes alone.

“All right,” he says, cracking his knuckles. “Let’s get down to business, huh? Gotta get my star player back on the field.”

“Not your star player, Coach,” you say dryly. “Basically a part-time bench warmer, not sure what you’re remembering, but--”

“Yeah, shut up.” Barnes rolls his eyes and heads off in the direction of a series of weight machines, gesturing for you to follow him. “And at this point, it’s Bucky— just as long as we’re not on the field.”

“Oh, good. I was wondering how you dealt with people calling you  _ James,”  _ you tease, flashing a cheeky smile with your tongue caught between your teeth, finding it easy to fall back into your regular habits without the looming presence of what you suppose is now your  _ shared  _ physical therapist.

Yeah. Still weird.

However, you’re glad to discover that your bad mood—or what remains of it—has dissipated or dissolved or just plain  _ ceased to exist,  _ along with the tension that had hung heavy between the two of you. It’s just like during practice, except...not.

Coach— Bucky, you correct yourself— gets you squared away pretty quickly. He directs you towards a yoga mat next to a wall-mounted resistance weight, which turns out to be nothing more than a glorified rubber band, and then sits down beside you with a fifty pound dumbbell.

“I hope that’s not for me. I’m pretty sure I can’t even pick that up.”

Bucky grins, curling the weight in his bad arm with a level of effortlessness that makes you feel hopelessly inadequate. “Nah. You’re gonna start small. Take the band— no, not like that, you gotta— hold on.“

He wraps it twice around your hand for you, movements deft and familiar, and you find yourself wondering how often and how long he’s been doing this. Coach—  _ Bucky—  _ rattles off instructions, deep and sure like when he’s running drills, but his voice is a little softer— you chalk that up to the fact that he’s not struggling to gain some measure of control over a horde of teenage girls intent on doing anything but running.

“Pull back slow. You should feel a little bit of a twinge but I want you to stop if it hurts, okay? Yeah, like that, just— keep your shoulders level.”

He moves back, apparently satisfied, and shifts his attention back to himself. You’re not entirely sure of the purpose of any of the handful of exercises he has you do, but nothing hurts, which you’re willing to take as a good sign. 

Eventually you find yourself watching Bucky out of curiosity, studying how the muscles in his forearms bunch and strain, distorting the raised, waxy scars running like cracks along the surface of his skin. It looks like raw marble— jagged and ridged lines spreading out in a senseless pattern, snaking from the lower part of his shoulder all the way down to the flat of his wrist.

“You can ask, you know,” he grits out, letting the weight fall to the floor with a solid  _ thud _ . “I’m not gonna be upset.”

“Okay.” You let go of the resistance band and drum your fingers absentmindedly against the navy blue yoga mat, contemplating how best to phrase the question.

“What happened?” You say finally, deciding to stick to something vague and allow Coach—  _ Bucky,  _ god, that was going to take some getting used to— to answer in as much or as little detail as he feels comfortable.

“I was in the army,” he explains, handing you a dumbell—  _ one fucking pound,  _ okay, wow, does he think you’re a cripple?

He takes a swig from his sports bottle as you stand there, not quite sure if you’re supposed to ask him to explain further or not.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” You complain instead, holding up the bright-pink, frankly  _ ridiculous _ - _ looking _ dumbbell. “Is this a fucking shakeweight?”

Bucky chokes on his water.

“Holy shit, that— it’s not— _ no, _ ” he sputters,  concealing what you're like ninety-five percent sure is an inappropriately gleeful smile behind his hand as he wipes at his mouth. “Jesus.”

“Just kidding, Coach,” you say, not willing to even  _ attempt  _ at hiding your cheeky grin as he struggles to recover from breathing in his drink.

Bucky shoots you a look that’s probably not nearly as disapproving as he had intended it to be, and changes the subject. “Y’know, I thought you’d be more curious ‘bout the whole war thing.” 

He moves over to the chin-up bar without waiting on a response, using one arm to leverage himself up over it and then back down again, the taut movement of muscles in his shoulders and upper back really distracting in the  _ worst  _ way. 

He’s physically attractive— dark hair and  steely blue eyes and a  _ really  _ nice shoulder-to-hip ratio— but he wears gym clothes fucking  _ everywhere  _ and acts like a slightly politer version of the college frat boy in every  _ lifetime  _ movie you’ve ever seen and still thinks Nike socks are a good decision.

So he’s totally  _ not your type,  _ you think defensively, still not tearing your eyes away.

_ “ _ I guess I just didn’t want to pry?” You blurt out, not sure why you end up phrasing it as a question.

Bucky drops down to the ground with a heavy exhale and rolls out his shoulders. You prop your elbows up on the padded armrest of one of the machines you had been using.

“You’re not prying,” he assures you. “Afghanistan, back in 2010.” Bucky leans back against the wall and watches you as you work through the first set of arm curls, cocking his head slightly to one side like he’s looking for some sign of recognition. “You’ve gotta know somethin’ about that. You take history, right? With Mr. Rogers?”

Your grip on the machine you’re using falters for a split second and the stack of weights crashes back to the ground.

“Ow.”

Bucky raises an eyebrow.

Cool. Nice. Fucking—  _ great.  _ If there was a direction you’d been expecting the conversation to go in, it wasn’t _ there _ , and you aren’t quite prepared for how visible your reaction is.

“D’you not like him, or somethin’?” He asks, with a laugh that’s more than a little incredulous, as if he can’t wrap his head around how that’s even a possibility.

“No, that’s— no. He’s my favorite teacher,” you say quickly, struggling to divide your focus between the conversation and the challenge of keeping your injured wrist steady against the pull of the machine. You’d like to blame what you say next on your divided attention — say that it was a slip of the tongue, a  _ mistake,  _ that you’re exhausted and  _ clearly  _ not thinking but the reality is probably something a little different. Maybe you just want to talk to someone about it, and Coach Barnes just happens to be the most viable option, is all.

“It’s just— we had a sort of—disagreement,” you say tentatively. “A falling out, I guess.”  

Bucky pauses and chews on the inside of his cheek. “Oh,” he says. “Probably not your fault, he’s been in a shit mood since last week anyway.”

The knowledge that said aforementioned  _ shit mood  _ was most definitely your fault sends a sharp pang of guilt lancing through your stomach. You frown and you square your shoulders and promptly tell yourself to  _ get over it  _ because it’s almost five’o’clock on a Monday and you still have a whole week’s left of school to suffer through and you have  _ history  _ tomorrow and the last thing you need is to start sulking _.  _ Especially when there are a thousand million other perfectly reasonable ways to deal with your—  _ teenage angst,  _ or whatever.

Bucky shrugs. “I dunno. Just talk to him about it. Steve’s usually pretty good with that sorta stuff. Might fix whatever mood he’s in, too.”

“I—  _ might,”  _ you say slowly, knowing that you probably won’t. “Anyway— you were telling me about Afghanistan?”

Bucky gives you this  _ look,  _ like he’s somehow aware of how stupid you’re being despite not knowing anything about the situation, like,  _ at all.  _ Instead of pressing the situation, he wipes at his forehead with the back of his hand and shrugs and, thankfully, changes the subject, “Yeah. Two tours, Steve and I. First one went well, second… not so well.”

“Him and I, we were out doing… I don’t even remember,” Bucky says, shaking his head good-naturedly. “Anyway, there was this frag mine— you know what a frag mine is, right?— and long story short it was a choice between him and I getting blown up and a bunch of civilians, which,  _ no.”  _  Bucky shakes his head, flashing a lopsided semblance of a grin. “Got lucky, I guess. Shredded the absolute  _ hell  _ out of my arm, but I’m alive, and whatever the doctors did lets me use it still, so a couple scars are no big deal.”

 

You nod, feeling sort of— lost. What exactly are you supposed to say to that sort of thing? How much sympathy is too much to the point of it being vaguely condescending? 

Luckily— or unluckily, depending on how you look at it— it doesn’t end up mattering. Julie interrupts the two of you with a cheerfully chirping reminder that your appointments both end at five and you realize, belatedly, that it’s time for you to leave. To go  _ home. _

_ Finally _ .

Neither you or Bucky talk much as you grab your things— your phone and your charging cord, his water bottle and slightly frayed headphones— and head out to the parking lot.

“See ya tomorrow, then,” Bucky says somewhat absentmindedly, pausing on the cracked asphalt midway between his sleek BMW and your dinky little sedan. You hadn’t pegged him as the expensive-car-type, you find yourself thinking distantly.

“Yeah, see you,” you say, ducking into the driver’s seat of your Honda Civic and sliding the keys into the ignition. Bucky’s car rolls out of the parking lot, engine purring softly, and you listen to the sound of it as it gets softer and softer until you’re not sure if you can even hear it anymore, or if your mind’s just playing tricks on you.

You don’t start your car. 

Instead, you sit there and you stare out at the bleeding reds and oranges of the sunset disappearing behind a scraggly row of trees and mismatched houses, and you wonder if maybe Bucky was right.

_ Talk to him. _

It’s not like you’re trying to force Mr. Rogers into like, a  _ relationship,  _ or whatever. It had pretty obviously been a mistake, an  _ impulse,  _ and that—

It’s fine. He’s not obligated to feel any type of way about you or about what had happened. It’s not that you want that, at all.

You just want things to go back to how they were.  _ Before. _

Somewhat dejectedly, you turn the keys in the ignition. The engine stalls, and sputters, and then falls silent.

You sigh.

_ Fuck. _

 

——-

 

It’s late.

Steve yawns, shakes his head, fights back the sluggish, warm lull of drowsiness that creeps into the edges of his peripheral vision. He forces his eyes to refocus on his artificially-bright laptop screen, at the document that was  _ supposed  _ to be next week’s lecture notes, which is still mostly blank. The cursor blinks at the edge of the page—  _ off. On. Off. On—  _ and it takes an unreasonable amount of energy for him to stop himself from staring at it until he actually passes out. 

He needs to go  _ home _ . His head throbs, and Steve reaches into his desk drawer, fumbles around for the bottle of advil, unscrews the lid and shakes out two pills.

Three. Three would be better, Steve thinks, wincing at the sudden throbbing pain at the base of his skull. He takes the pills dry, shoves the bottle back into his desk—

“Mr. Rogers?”

He jerks his head up.

“(Name)?” He replies, not really needing to even see her to know who it is. It’s the way she speaks-- he just knows.

His mouth is dry. He swallows, fumbles to shut off his laptop and shove it into his bookbag, just to give his hands something to do.

“I don’t-- was there something you needed?” Steve manages to say, despite how heavy his tongue feels in his mouth. The pressure in his head has receded somewhat-- probably thanks to adrenaline, which so definitely isn’t a good thing.

“Yeah,” she answers softly, and then she’s closing the door and moving towards him and the entire situation suddenly feels like an impending catastrophe, like somebody upstairs thought it would be  _ funny  _ to just throw him into what basically amounts to a combination of literally  _ all  _ his previous mistakes--- “We need to… talk. I think.”

Steve pauses the process of packing up his things to look at her.

That was a mistake. He’s not sure how she manages to look  _ pretty  _ even on a Monday evening while he isn’t even sure that all of his brain is working or if his fucking tie even matches the rest of his outfit, but she  _ does,  _ and it’s enough to make him feel off-balance and leave hims stranded, suddenly at a loss for what to say.

There’s a sadness to her, though, a defensive slant to her posture as she closes the door behind her, and that--

It hits him like a punch to the gut, and for the first time since everything that had happened Steve feels a different sort of guilt churning sour in the pit of his stomach.

He must have hurt her, Steve realizes, somewhat late to what should have been a fairly obvious connection. They had been friends, before this, even though they probably shouldn’t have been, and now half the time he can barely look at her and Steve hadn’t even stopped for  _ half a fucking second  _ to consider how that might make  _ her  _ feel because he was all caught up in his own angst and various self-deprecating  _ issues  _ to even think about it. 

Oh, God, he’s such an ass.

“Yeah,” he says, guilty and sorry and  _ pathetically fucking predictable,  _ “Yeah, we can talk.”

She manages an almost-smile, and the level of awkwardness in the room is equal parts sad and just straight-up uncomfortable as she leans back against one of the fold-out student desks in front of his worktable. Her muscles are stiff. Her expression is tense. Steve lets a beat pass, and then another, and then  _ another,  _ not really sure who’s supposed to start the conversation or if the conversation was even going to happen at all.

“I miss you,” she blurts out, cutting the silence into two clean halves. She winces immediately, flinching back as if she hadn’t entirely meant to say it out loud. Steve understands that, at least. “I mean-- I miss-- I don’t know. How it was. Before. You hardly even talk to me now.”

Steve swallows. He stands up, cautiously, shoulders tense. There’s the guilt again, heavy and cold and tense somewhere in his abdomen. “I-- I didn’t know what else to do,” he says. It’s the truth, at least, which makes it somehow  _ worse. _

“I mean, I get pretending that nothing happened,” she says, not even really acknowledging what he’d responded with, “But-- I just don’t  _ understand  _ why you had to go and act like I just didn’t  _ exist  _ anymore, I thought you were my friend and I don’t know what I’m supposed to  _ do--” _

She looks like she’s going to cry, and Steve moves around his desk, takes the step forward like he’s going to comfort her or soothe her or something equally as stupid and selfish and ridiculously predictable, but falters halfway through the movement. 

“I’m sorry,” he says instead. “I’m sorry, (Name), I really am. I never meant to hurt you, but,” he hesitates, swallows, and forces himself to continue, “But you have to understand-- I shouldn’t have… I shouldn’t have done what I did. And I was worried about what you might think of me and I was upset at myself, too, and I thought if we just kept our distance that it would--”

“That it would go away?”

Steve nods slowly. “Yeah.”

She makes a noise that’s some sort of mixture between a sniffle and a choked-out laugh, and shakes her head. “It didn’t. Go away, I mean. It didn’t go away.”

He’s agreeing with her before he even has the common sense to stop himself. “I know.”

She looks up at him. For the first time in what feels like a while, he doesn’t feel the immediate need to look away.

“You understand,” he starts slowly, “You understand that what I did-- it wasn’t-- I shouldn’t--”

“You’re not  _ allowed  _ to do it, or whatever,” she supplies, folding her arms over her chest in what might have been a protective gesture. “I know.”

Steve shrugs helplessly. “I-- I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do. After. There could have been pretty serious repercussions, and I thought-- maybe some distance would be the best thing?” He phrases it like a question, and truth be told he’s not sure why.

What he is sure of, though, is that it should have ended then. She gets her answer and maybe some closure and Steve gets to feel even worse about the situation but it’s  _ over,  _ and he’d take the long way out to the teacher parking lot so they wouldn’t have to walk together and they’d both go home to their respective lives and move on.

That’s not what happens. Neither of them move, just stand there and stare at each other; and his eyes dart down to her bottom lip when she bites it, and maybe he imagines her taking a sharp breath in or maybe he doesn’t, and he’s not sure which one is worse.

“I get it,” she says finally. Steve can’t quite put a finger on the emotion bubbling in his stomach then-- it’s not unease, no, but it’s some sort of anticipation, his gut is clenching and his skin feels warm and something, something about the situation is suddenly  _ off  _ but he can’t figure out what it is--

“You can’t kiss me,” she mumbles, and hearing her say what he’d done out loud is equal parts terrible and painfully fucking  _ provocative.  _ Steve focuses his attention somewhere besides her face; she’s fiddling with a thread on her shirt sleeve, and he watches her wrap it round and round and round her finger, cutting off blood flow until it finally snaps.

Fitting, he thinks.

_ Ironic. _

“What if I kissed you?”

Steve licks his lips and resolutely doesn’t look at her while still managing to be painfully,  _ viscerally  _ aware of how close she is to him. His brain isn’t quite firing on all cylinders because it’s late and he’s tired and he’s never been that great at keeping a level head around her in the first place, and he blames that for why he doesn’t move back. Why he doesn’t make her  _ leave,  _ right then, before the situation spirals any further.

“It’s not like you’d be doing anything wrong,” she’s saying, and then she steps closer and there’s adrenaline and excitement and trepidation simmering low inside of him and his chest feels tight and everything’s happening simultaneously too fast and too fucking  _ slow-- _

“(Name),” he says, very softly, almost a whisper, almost a  _ warning,  _ and Steve doesn’t even pause to think about why that’s the only thing he says. Not  _ stop,  _ or  _ don’t,  _ or  _ I can’t. _

There’s only about a foot of space between them now. Just a step. A single, solitary fucking step, and before he can move, she takes it for him.

Of course she does.

 

“Steve.”

When she kisses him, it’s gentle. Shy. Hesitant. He doesn’t even think of telling her to stop because he’s stupid and because his restraint is worn thin and because--

“Steve!”

  
  


He jerks up. Shakes his head. Looks around an empty classroom, blinking at the harsh fluorescent glow of the overhead lights. There’s someone in the doorway, and it takes a minute for his eyes to remember how to actually focus.

It’s Stark. Because of course it fucking is. He’s leaned against the doorframe, one eyebrow raised and mouth quirked and expression irritatingly curious, and Steve grits his teeth hard enough to make the muscle in his jaw twitch.

“Time is it?” he sighs.

“Nearly seven. Dunno why you’re still here,” Stark says. He rolls his eyes. “Get some rest tonight, huh?”

Steve sighs. Rests his head down on the desk. Closes his eyes. Thinks, very briefly, about the dream he’d just had, and wonders if he’ll even sleep tonight at all.

 


End file.
